Demand for legal aid outpacing available service

With unemployment and poverty on the rise amid an economic downturn, a growing number of poor New Yorkers will find that funding for legal services they may need is not increasing to compensate for demand.

Already, numerous statewide legal aid programs turn away a high percentage of those who come to them, participating organizations said.

One such group, the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, is on pace to turn away some 9,800 people by year's end, said Executive Director Lillian Moy during a recent meeting with The Record's Editorial Board.

"We're turning away almost as many people as we can serve," she said. "And I think it's not acceptable."

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Unlike in criminal cases, where the public defender must represent those who need help free of charge, help is not automatically provided for civil matters, she said.

Almost $16 million was allotted to such groups in the state's 2007's budget under then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, which equated to just less than $6 per poor person in the state -- about right in the middle compared to other states. Funding dropped to $8 million the following year, and a scant $1 million was included in the 2009-2010 executive budget -- some 37 cents per poor person. But after contributions by the Legislature's poll of member item money, the number looks to be anywhere from $9 to $13 million, with some funds split between civil and criminal assistance.

Even supplemented by "significant" federal money, it's still not enough in today's climate, Moy said.

Those who provide civil services argue that the cause needs a stable budget line instead of drawing from a varyingly-funded pot, while also relying on what is called the Interest on Lawyer's Account, an escrow fund tied to interest rates than is currently plummeting.

"Right now with the interest rates having fallen obviously into the basement, that fund has, too," said Lisa A. Frisch, executive director of The Legal Project.

Officials are asking that federal stimulus dollars, which have already been used to plug a gaping budget gap and to restore education cuts, be used to prop up that escrow fund.

And while they are grateful for the increase in funding, they'd like to see about $15 million for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, which began Wednesday without a budget in place.

"There isn't a sound, annual regular funding mechanism," said Kyle Kotary, a spokesman for the various groups. "It gets caught up in the budget roulette, if you will."

In an economic downturn more people need legal help to remain in their home, secure social services or fight for child custody, among other things, Moy said.

"It's easy to see it as social work, but it's not," she said. "It's legal work."

Some of the work the organization can perform will actually save the state money, she argued, like fighting for someone to remain in his/her home, which, if successful, would prevent them from ending up in locally-mandated, taxpayer-funded shelters.

And while avoiding foreclosure might seem to require only responsible finances, one Troy woman found it was not so simple.

An Albia woman was forced to find a new home after a divorce and ended up in a risky mortgage. But she always kept all her paperwork and made each payment, however difficult, she said.

So when the institution her mortgage was sold to tried to repossess her house, she ended up in court and didn't know what to do until she got aid from a lawyer in the group. The lawyer went through all her paperwork and was able to convince a judge she had made every payment, she said, though she noted the case is not completely over.

"I don't know anything about legal mumbo-jumbo," said the woman, a former state employee on disability. "Without them, I don't know where I would be, because so far they've kept me in my home."

The aid groups also work with families in regards to custody and domestic violence.

One woman who sought support from the Legal Project after trying to take on an abusive husband without an attorney testified to the state Assembly recently, saying the organization was able to bring the expertise that helped her and her son get back on track and not be manipulated in court.

"If funding is cut for this organization, you will be destroying the hopes and future of a lot of women," she told lawmakers on Feb. 24.

Some of the state's most prominent jurists have offered their support to the cause, including Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman of the Court of Appeals, New York's highest court.